


Kaumaha (Grief)

by BlameThePlotBunnies



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: But I don't care tbh, Character Death, Not sure if she's major or minor these days, probably a bit OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 18:30:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1788940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameThePlotBunnies/pseuds/BlameThePlotBunnies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes all you can do is carry on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Event

“Mary! No... No! MARY!” these words were followed by a scream so full of grief that it was almost inhuman, we rushed around the corner, through the gates into the walled courtyard, all four of us froze in the gateway. There was blood everywhere, bodies strewn across the yard like abandoned toys, everything was gritty with brick dust and there were piles of rubble all around, and in the middle of the carnage was the most disturbing sight of all. The figure of a man knelt with his back was to us, it had been over two minutes, but the long howling scream of pain still emanated from him, as Steve McGarret clutched at the body of his little sister, Mary-Ann, and at that moment, it seemed entirely possible that the sound would go on forever.

I don’t know when it ended, and I don’t recall moving, but all of a sudden, I found myself beside him, kneeling down amid the blood and stone, to hold him through his pain. I wanted to tell him it was gonna be okay, but the words seemed... feeble, somehow. Like an empty promise, because, deep-down, I knew, we all knew, that for Steve, it was never going to be okay again.

My moving seemed to have broken into the trance-like state of the rest of the team and they had leapt into action, Kono moved among the bodies, checking for pulses; Kay was on the phone to the emergency services, summoning non-urgent ambulances, while Chin liaised with HPD. I didn’t move. I knew that Steve needed me: I was something to hold on to. Something alive...

When the ambulance guys arrived, they almost ended up dead too, but only because they didn’t know, and that wasn’t really their fault. Mary’s was the last body to go, but Steve wouldn’t, or maybe he couldn’t, let her go. He held her so close and pulled the gun out of my holster, pointing it at the two, understandably miffed, paramedics. It took me fifteen minutes to convince him that it was okay to let them take Mary’s body to the morgue. After that, it was my first instinct to get him out of there, to get him as far away from the sight and smell of blood and death as possible, so, as soon as the M.O had given him a preliminary once over, agreeing that he was in shock, (I’d guessed when he didn’t refuse to see a doctor), and that the best thing for him was a hot meal, a bath and some sleep, I took him home with me.

By the time we got there, he was practically asleep, tearstained and miserable looking, but calm now, so I half carried him inside and settled him on my bed, where he fell straight into a deeper sleep, so I took his shoes off, wrapped a blanket over him and left him there while I cooked us something to eat. Soup, I didn’t think he’d be ravenous, and it would be easy to get down him without him having to wake up too much.

* * *

 

I’d just pulled the soup off the stove when he started screaming.

“LEAVE HER ALONE YOU BASTARD! MARY! NO! MARY!!!!!”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay!” I rushed into the room and wrapped my arms around his shaking form, “Shh... Shh, now, baby. Danny’s here. Danny’s here.” I realised now that I’d been stupid to leave him alone, after all he’d been through: nightmares were only to be expected.

“I saw her Danny! He killed her! That bastard killed her!” I knew I shouldn’t question him too soon, but I also knew that the longer I left it, the harder it would be for him

“Who killed her, baby?”

“Wo Fat...” Steve gasped, sobbing into my shoulder, I’d never seen him like this before and it unnerved me to see someone, usually so tough, fall apart like this.

“It’s okay, baby, you got him. He’s dead, he’s not gonna hurt you anymore.” I reassured him, stroking his back gently; then he pulled away and looked me in the eye.

“He’s dead?”

“I saw the body.” I confirmed “I checked for a pulse myself.” He nodded slowly, burrowing back against me. It was a moment before I noticed that he was hyperventilating, by which point he was shaking so badly that I pulled the blanket around him and didn’t stop stroking his back and murmuring reassurance until his breathing returned to normal. After a while, the shaking stopped too.

I didn’t dare leave him alone for even a minute after that, so when we showered, sometime after drinking the soup, we showered together. We even did the corny stuff, like soaping each other’s backs, but that’s just kind of natural in our partnership, it’s nice that we’re close enough to feel comfortable doing that sort of thing.

Anyway, once the blood and grime had been washed away, we pulled on pyjamas, I lent Steve a pair of mine; then I locked up, with Steve trailing me around the house, and we tumbled into bed, both of us in my double. He slept deeply when he slept, and either screamed blue murder or was completely silent when he awoke, once or twice I even caught him holding his breath, but somehow, God knows how, we made it through the night, cuddled together in the dark.

I don’t know how many times I dragged him back from the edge that night, and I don’t ever want to. What I have to keep him, and me, focused on now, is the future.


	2. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath. Recovery isn't always easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if this whole story hasn't been a little ooc for the boys but... well, there it is.

We’d been back at work barely three days, and though I was still staying with him every night, Steve was holding up fairly well. Or so I thought. I was in the office with the Governor, when Kono rushed in, all out of breath, her bullet proof vest still on,

“Danny! It’s McGarret, he just flipped out in the middle of a bust, you’d better come...” Without a word, I dashed out of the room with her, rushing into the parking lot out front, where it was taking Chin-ho and Kay to keep McGarret upright, he was shaking so hard. He was gasping for breath and sweating, his eyes overly bright and darting around at an incredible speed.

“Steve!” I rushed over to him and did the first thing my parental instinct told me to do: I wrapped my arms around him and held him close. “Shh... Shh, baby, it’s okay, Danny’s here... You’re safe, it’s okay.” He sagged against me, hugging me back and burrowing his face into my neck. I held him and stroked his back as we stood there in the parking lot, in full view of the world, until his breathing eased and the shaking subsided. “Okay?” I inquired finally, aware that Chin, Kay, Kono and the Governor, as well as a number of other interested people, were watching us closely.

“Uh-huh.” Steve nodded shakily, “It was the blood, Danny, the blood set me off. So much blood...” he told me, swallowing hard and tightening his grip on my upper arms,

“S’okay, baby, I won’t let you go ‘til you want me to.” I assured him, in an undertone “C’mon, let’s get you inside...” I suggested and, keeping one arm wrapped around his waist, I guided him into the building.  

* * *

 

“It was most probably a panic attack.” The M.O said, I’d gotten Steve inside, and Chin had called the M.O down to check him out.  Steve was now sitting on the couch in the corner of the office, sipping at a mug of hot, sweet tea, while the M.O expounded upon his conclusions, “With time they should fade, but you’ll need to avoid any stressful situations until they do, Commander.” The pressure of a bust, the deep down, hard to conceal feeling of panic, I should’ve known that he wouldn’t be ready for that again so soon, but it honestly made sense to get him back to something he was used to, and he’d said he was ready...

He should’ve had time off, that was the M.O’s first instruction, but Steve refused point blank, saying he didn’t want to be home while we were all risking our lives. So, after some debate, Steve was confined to office work and a suggested nine to five routine, which we were instructed that he had to keep to for at least a week before being allowed to try a field op again.

In the first three days, he had six minor panic attacks, during which he shook uncontrollably and, at worst, had slight difficulty breathing. When they occurred, he would have to abandon what he was doing, take a sort-of time out, and sit in a quiet corner with some water until he felt better. Often I would sit with him, just for that little extra bit of reassurance, but when I didn’t, he did okay on his own. After those initial attacks, however, they seemed to become less frequent, shorter and more manageable.

Finally Steve decided he was ready to come along on a raid, not as a main team member, simply as back-up, but this was fine with us, we knew he was ready, because he’d decided it all himself, and taken, not only the ordered week, but twelve days to recover. He’d never before gone over the ordered recovery time, even when he still felt ill, he’d get back out there again as soon as possible, so it was pleasant, if surprising, to see him take what time he needed.

The raid was straight-forward enough, a drug den in the heart of Honolulu, and it went really well. Not just the bust itself, though we got everything we went in for and much more, (we found illegal firearms on the premises too), but McGarret handled it just fine, almost his usual self again. Okay, so we headed home after it was all over and he had a panic attack then, but this was in his own kitchen, and it was a minor one that barely lasted five minutes. Even so, I insisted he take it easy the rest of the night, made him dinner and hid his paperwork so that he couldn’t work all night and exhaust himself.

We did have a little chat about Mary, about how much he was missing her, and how his panic attacks were often set off by blood, which led back to how much of a blood bath that night had been. We decided that we’d try to find some time, not necessarily ages, just a few minutes, each day to talk about what had happened, to see if that makes any difference to anything. If it doesn’t, never mind we’ll try something else, and if it does... well, it means we’ll have our Commander McGarret back all the sooner!     


End file.
